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The Phi Beta Kappa Association 

IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

No. 2. 
OBSERVATIONS IN MEXICO BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 

Syllabus of an address delivered before the Association on March 16, 1914, by the 
Hon. JAMES L. SLAYDEN. M. C, of Texas. 

NoTB. — Abstracts of the regular addresses delivered before The Phi Beta Kappa 
Association in the District of Columbia are printed by the Association and supjlitu to 
its members and to chapters of the fraternity. It is expected that most of these 
addresses will deal with phases of the current national life, and the abstracts will, 
therefore, constitute a chronological record for the members of this Association and 
will serve, it is hoped, as a means of stimulating thought and investigation on national 
problems in each Phi Beta Kappa chapter, both by undergraduate and by faculty 
members. 

The printing of No. 1 has been delayed but will follow shortly. 



Topographic and climatic conditions in Mexico have important bearing on political 
movements. 

Many Americans believe Mexico to be a vast fertile plain. This idea fostered bjv 
avaricious Americans for their private gain. American commercial interests trying to 
bring on war, which would mean hundreds of millions of expense and thousands of widows 
and orphans, with no corresponding gain. The Mexicans would still own Mexico. 

Two great north-south mountain ranges converge at city of Mexico; west and east of 
them narrow strips of lowland on the coasts; between them a vast plateau, waterless, 
desolate. No agriculture without irrigation ; no cities except those built on mining. These 
mountains high, rugged, strongholds for bandits. A tract of country about six times the 
size of the State of New York with the population of Philadelphia. Southern Mexico not 
here considered; land of rain and heat. 

Mexico full of strange contrast in people and things; electric mining machinery and 
forked wooden plows. Fifteen million people — 8,000,000 Indians, 4,000,000 Mestizos or 
half-breeds, and 5.000,000 whites; the 20th century and the 13th century jumbled 
together. No cohesion ; no homogeneity ; no common tongue ; no knowledge by one tribe 
of the existence of many other tribes — much like the North American Indians of 200 
years ago, but less resolute and lazier — so lazy that some employers pay off every day in 
order to have workmen the next day; by next morning cock fights and gambling have 
transferred 90 per cent of wages to 10 per cent of pockets; work necessary for the 90 
per cent. No real patriotism; no real conception of government; no real middle class. 
Commerce and finance in the hands of foreigners; politics a chief pursuit of the native 
whites; the peon does nothing if possible. Brigandage still exists; was common until 
Marshal Bazaine broke it up by dressing up his handsome young soldiers as women v.ith 
carbines under their petticoats, thus exterminating the brigands. 

In 1877 came Porfirio Diaz and the railroads. Diaz conquered the bandit caciques 
and made them captains of rurales (mounted police); he built 15,000 miles of railroad; 
made ports and harbors ; brought New York within five days, Manchester within 1 2 days ; 
estabished religious freedom ; was making a nation of Mexico. The revolution that drove 
him out was born in Texas and was made possible by armed adventurers from the United 
States and elsewhere. Only one sentiment would bring the Mexicans together— their 
hatred of Americans. An invasion by our army would unite the whole country; nothing 
else will. 

The present war on a plane of savagery. The "Constitutionalist" army at Monterey, 
half-starved, burnt the railroad station, burnt the engines, burnt long lines of freight cars 
loaded with food, was on its way to burn the city, captured the brewery, and got drunk— 
and that saved the city. At Esperanzas these soldiers looted the important houses, robbed 
the poor laborers, broke up their sewing machines, burnt their hovels. Villa apparently 
is a bandit chief of the tenth or twelfth century, with the morals and the craft of that age, 
bold and masterful. 

The land hunger is on the Mexican Indian, the peon, although he is shiftless and lazy ; 
it may hold on to him and drive him to interminable war. From it he may emerge finally 
with a government that suits him. that may be fashioned by a Mexican hand after a 
Mexican conception — not a government unsuited to him like ours. For the Spanish- 
American Indian the Anglo-American scheme of government is a criminal misfit. Time 
alone can tell us what Mexico is to be. 






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